Old Testament
Jeremiah 24
The Two Baskets of Figs
Overview
Through a vision of two baskets of figs placed before the Temple — one ripe and good, the other rotten and inedible — God reveals to Jeremiah that the Judeans exiled to Babylon in 597 BC are objects of His providential care and are promised restoration and a renewed heart, while King Zedekiah, his court, and those who remained in Judah or fled to Egypt are condemned to dispersion, reproach, and destruction for refusing the discipline of exile.
Passages
Study Resources
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Jeremiah 24
1Yahweh showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before Yahweh’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
3Then Yahweh asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”
4Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, 5“Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good. 6For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.
8“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely Yahweh says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. 10I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”